| Carnegie Forum |

Rebuilding U.S.-Russia Relations

Responding to the growing rift between the United States and Russia, Carnegie Corporation of New York, long committed to improving U.S.-Russia relations, has invited experts to weigh in on the latest challenges in the relationship. Their views and perspectives are aimed at enriching understanding and findings pathways to rebuilding this critical relationship.

In October 2014, the Council posted an article titled “Needs Work: A Troubled U.S.-Russia Relationship,” in which we noted somberly that “if there is one point of agreement between pundits in Moscow and Washington these days, it is that U.S.-Russia relations are at a post-Cold War nadir.”

In the wake of the ongoing crisis in Ukraine, talk of a “New Cold War” is in vogue. Even experts who studied the Soviet Union and Russia from the depths of mutually assured destruction and détente to the fall of Communism now say that it will be decades again before “normal” relations between Russia and the West can resume…

The abrupt end of the quarter-of-a-century-long era of cooperation and partnership between Russia and the West, and the return of confrontation and hostility between them, did not come out of the blue…

Calls to arm Ukraine have helped to galvanize diplomatic efforts to find a solution to the crisis, and over the longer term, the Ukrainian Army will need more weapons and better training, if only to enforce any peace agreement…

From a conflict resolution perspective, the question—admittedly very difficult now that the violence has escalated and several thousand civilians, soldiers, and rebels have been killed in Eastern Ukraine—is: can the West go beyond isolating Russia and act together to contain the escalating violence and transform the conflict into constructive dialogue?…

Settlement on any terms while fighting continues seems most unlikely, so efforts to stop the fighting and meet the humanitarian needs of the people trapped in combat zones must take priority. Nevertheless, active negotiations to reach an overall settlement must proceed in order to improve the prospects for a cease-fire and the durability of one, if reached…

In short, the West’s idea of partnership was Russia’s absolute acquiescence with all Western policies anywhere in the world, irrespective of the consequences for Russia, along with the total reshaping of Russian society according to a Western model, without any consideration for Russia’s peculiarities, history, and culture…

The main assumption underlying Putin’s vision is that the United States, by various ways and means, is set on deceiving Russia. Foremost in that assumption is that the United States destroyed the USSR and constantly seeks to diminish Russia’s global and regional role, all the while attempting to gain access to Russian oil and gas…

Putin’s move in Crimea and the subsequent efforts to destabilize eastern Ukraine can be seen as an attempt to overturn the chessboard when the arrangement of pieces is no longer favorable, forcing a new game with different rules…

The confluence of global crises this summer (Gaza, Ebola, Iraq, etc.) should remind all of us of the fragility of the existing global system and reignite a debate on why the post-1989 bipartisan American foreign policy vision sought to convert as many states as possible into stakeholders…

The West does have to respond to Putin’s seizure of Crimea and threats to the rest of Ukraine, which, among other things, violate the 1975 Helsinki Final Act and the 2004 Budapest Memorandum. The U.S. and its allies have to take military and other steps to reassure anxious allies in Central Europe that NATO membership means what it says…

No doubt, the cynical brutality of Russian President Vladimir Putin can be infuriating, but the notion that Russia has been behaving in ways that other great powers normally eschew is not borne out by a perusal of the academic literature on international relations and the history of revolutions…

The bottom line is that there is a very big difference between the largely peaceful annexation of Crimea with its economy intact, and fighting a major war to win the privilege of investing tens of billions of dollars or more in eastern Ukraine…

Over the past 20-plus years, along with our Russian colleagues, we have found that at times we must move beyond political disagreements such the political situation in Ukraine, to work together to advance the cause of nuclear security…

One hot war (Georgia), one covert war (Ukraine), two de facto annexations (South Ossetia and Abkhazia) and one de jure annexation (Crimea) later, Russia has made it clear that it intends to keep NATO out of its neighborhood…

Now is the time to take advantage of the respect that the leadership of Russia has for American achievements in science and technology and for the strength and diversity of the higher education establishment in the United States…

[For Russian leaders] colored revolutions are a new form of warfare invented by Western governments seeking to remove independently-minded national governments in favor of ones that are controlled by the West…

It is one thing to voice official support for Ukrainian participation in the European Association Agreement. It is another entirely for U.S. diplomats to distribute tea and cookies on the central square to participants of a popular uprising to replace the government…

Market forces will be more effective than sanctions in influencing Putin’s behavior, and there is already ample evidence that markets are extracting their price in terms of a weakened ruble, falling foreign exchange reserves, capital flight, and reduced growth…

Europe does far more trade with Russia (nearly half a trillion dollars a year compared to our $50 billion) than the United States. How long before the EU becomes far less enthusiastic about squeezing Putin?…

To understand why Putin and his fellow Russians feel compelled to intervene in Ukraine, you must understand that the crisis in that country began from the deep anger of all strata of Ukrainian society toward the corrupt, incompetent, and increasingly authoritarian regime of former President Viktor Yanukovych…

President Obama is under siege on so many fronts, his Russia policy enjoys what could almost be called bipartisan support in comparison to his attempts to deal with the Middle East and most domestic issues…

In just a few months, the Kremlin’s actions have: energized NATO to boost defenses around Russia’s borders; failed to avert (and maybe sped up) EU partnership agreements with Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia; and blackened Russia’s image around the world…

It is not in the long term interest of the United States to try to isolate the Russian economy or to degrade its productive development. It is decisively against the interest of the United States to stimulate corruption. That is already a massive problem in Ukraine and not a trivial problem in Russia…

If the goal was to keep Ukraine out of the “new look” NATO, it has certainly succeeded in bringing back elements of the “old look” NATO with calls to increase the NATO presence in member countries near Russia…

Given that U.S. policy for the last four decades has been predicated on encouraging some degree of distance between Moscow and Beijing, does a closer Russia-China entente create new and unanticipated problems for the U.S.?…

The temptation is to dismiss everything emanating from the Kremlin and in the Russian press as, as Secretary of State John Kerry has put it, stemming from ”a propaganda bullhorn” reflecting “a fantasy.” This would be a mistake…